TEAMS WERE IN NO RUSH TO TAKE A RUNNING BACK

Running backs? Feel free to clobber them. Slam them to the turf, too, if you’d like.

You may also want to draft them, but not up high.

In the recent NFL draft, not a single back went in the first round. Last time that happened, 50 years ago, Roger Goodell was hugging stuffed animals, not grown men.

You heard right. Fifty — five zero — consecutive drafts saw at least one running back drafted up top from 1964 through 2012.

Call it the Great Running Back Snub of 2013. What does it mean? Maybe nothing.

“I think it goes year to year,” said the Chargers’ draft overseer, Tom Telesco. “Next year maybe there is a big crop of running backs. That’s what we’ve kind of seen.

“I don’t think it’s that people are devaluing running backs whatsoever,” he added. “I think if Marcus Lattimore doesn’t get hurt, he’s probably a first-rounder. I think it’s just an anomaly. People need more than one, so there’s value in running backs.”

As NFL players become bigger, faster and stronger — HGH testing is available but not required — it’s the quarterbacks and receivers who are protected most from the collisions.

The speed and violence of SEC football, to my eyes, resembles the NFL of only several years ago. SEC running backs deserve larger scholarships.

For what it’s worth, of the four SEC backs drafted in the first round from 2008-11, none of the four — McFadden, Moreno, Jones and Ingram — has started 14 games in an NFL season or reached a Pro Bowl. The latter three border on busts, though Ingram is entering only his third season.

Last year, the Browns traded up to take Alabama running back Trent Richardson third, only to see him require knee surgery — his second in six months — early in training camp.

Lattimore, the South Carolina star, witnessed his kneecap get knocked sideways last fall by a Tennessee defender. The result: three torn knee ligaments and his second reconstructive knee surgery as a collegian.

In addition to Lattimore, a fourth-round selection of the 49ers, the other SEC players drafted before the fifth round last month were Eddie Lacy (Alabama), Christine Michael (Texas A&M) and Knile Davis (Arkansas).

Lacy had toe fusion surgery, not to mention knee, hand and chest injuries, that scared off some NFL teams, reported the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, and dropped him to the Packers at 61. During A&M’s Big 12 days, Michael suffered a broken leg and a torn ACL. The fumble-prone Davis, a 227-pounder clocked at 4.39 in the 40-yard dash, suffered fractures of the collarbone and ankle during his time at Fayetteville.

The first running back drafted this year, Giovani Bernard, taken 37th by the Bengals, tore an ACL in the third fall practice of his freshman year at North Carolina. Fortunately for Bernard, he goes to an NFL team with a good offensive line, a lead back in BenJarvis Green-Ellis and a wide array of pass-catchers led by A.J. Green.